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July 19, 2024
 

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COUNTERPOINT

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2007
Tojo and Bush: Trumpeting delusion on their way to defeat
Writing in the New York Times on July 17, the newspaper's well-known columnist David Brooks reported on a White House press conference he attended on July 13. "[Pres.] Bush was assertive and good-humored," Brooks noted.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 29, 2007
Erring voyager roots for Japanese courtesy that can't be beat
Has anything like this ever happened to you?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 22, 2007
Outsiders, or not; that is the question
I wish I had a yen or two for every time I've been told: "You will never be accepted in Japan."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 15, 2007
Former foes find common ground in court together
The shoot of "Ashita e no Yuigon (Best Wishes for Tomorrow)" that began on June 2 has ended. The film is in the can — as they say — and is now being edited.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2007
'Propaganda is the soul of every struggle'
Revolutionary activist Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on Sept. 3, 1918, exhorted colleagues not to relent in their struggles. "Stand your ground," she wrote, "till we meet again at work!"
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 1, 2007
Food for thought — and a writ to go
Dear Reader: Today I bring you news of the most chilling and awful purport. Don't worry, it doesn't affect you — at least I hope it doesn't. It is yours truly who is getting the short end of the chopstick on this one. I tell you, I feel as if I've been reborn with a greasy spoon in my mouth —...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 24, 2007
Maj. Gen. Okada: a rare leader who took the blame
How do you make an anti-war film? I don't mean those gore-driven "war is hell" spectaculars that often seem like a sub-genre of horror movies. I am referring to a work that prompts people in any country to say, "We must never allow this sort of thing to happen again — not to our own people and...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 17, 2007
Stand by your language — but not as a nationalist icon
Last month, on May 21 to be exact, something caught my eye in the English-language IHT/Asahi Shimbun newspaper. In an article headlined "Holistic patriotic education still missing," Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka of Takushoku University in Tokyo made an impassioned plea for Japanese children to be imbued...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 10, 2007
In Japan, show reverence where it's due (or not)
Japan is the country that I feel most at home in. Yet, despite having arrived in 1967, and living here for the better part of the intervening 40 years, I still see myself as the odd man out in one particular aspect. I just can't "act Japanese" — if you will excuse the generalization — when...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 3, 2007
Class rifts widen as Japan's flag-wavers wax patriotic
Why can't Japan cope with poverty?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2007
'Containment' time warp sours hopes that Yeltsin spawned
Nearly 60 years ago, in July 1947, American diplomat George Kennan published what was to become the single most influential article in modern American diplomatic history.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 20, 2007
An exemplar of where the war-crimes buck stops
Over the coming months in this column, I will return a few times to a film titled "Ashita e no Yuigon (Best Wishes for Tomorrow)." I have been very fortunate to be able to write the script for this together with its director, Takashi Koizumi, whose last film, "Hakase no Aishita Sushiki (The Professor...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 6, 2007
New clarities set to cloud smoke screens of ambiguity
Last month, on April Fool's Day to be exact, I revealed some terms and expressions appearing in the forthcoming Japanese government publication, "The Dictionary of All-Too-True Japanese Words and Phrases." Actually, there is far more than meets the eye in this groundbreaking, earthy volume.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 29, 2007
Spare a shudder in memory of an American 'ism' that lives on
This coming Wednesday, May 2, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of a venal and cowardly man, a true antihero of the 20th century.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 22, 2007
Who dares take the 'Q' out of Japan's 5-star kyushoku?
Is one of the great institutions of Japanese cul- ture succumbing to a slow, gnawing attack? It may be. I tell you, if this icon is lost, all we'll have left of the culture will be a few cartoons and some rusting karaoke machines.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 15, 2007
It was 40 (very different) years ago today . . .
The re-election last Sunday of Shintaro Ishihara as Tokyo governor has demon- strated once again that the people of Japan's capital city remain attracted to the policies of this outspoken author-turned-politician.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 8, 2007
Seeing yourself through the literary ways of others
With the 2007 academic year now about to begin in Japan, it's a good time to take a look at English-language teaching in the nation's universities. Yes, the tides are indeed running there. The emphasis is shifting determindly toward the utilitarian: English as a tool for Internet communication; English...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 1, 2007
Words to win hearts and minds the Japanese way
Over the years, the Japanese language has been called many things: inscrutably ambiguous, frustratingly vague and positively untranslatable.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 25, 2007
There's a world of languages Japanese too can learn
It seems to be conventional wisdom -- if "wisdom" is the word -- that Japanese people do not excel at mastering foreign languages. Some surveys of the results of international English-proficiency tests have them occupying the murky depths, below even the likes of North Koreans. Does the "Dear Leader,"...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 18, 2007
As London shows, assimilation is what migration's about
LONDON -- I have been coming to this city every few years for more than four decades, and this visit, of 10 days' duration, has, in some ways, been the most startling. Not that the mid-Sixties weren't. The Beatles, with every challenge to staid British routine that they personified, were in the ascendancy...
Yen rally shakes markets, sending dollar to weakest level since May
The yen rose to the ¥155 range against the dollar, the highest in almost two months, in Tokyo on Thursday.
Cutting ties with JCP not easy for CDP despite Renho's defeat
When Renho (center) announced her candidacy for the Tokyo gubernatorial election on May 27, the head of the Japanese Communist Party's secretariat, Akira Koike (far left), was also in attendance.
Trump's VP pick signals stronger focus on China
Former U.S. President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to his vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance, during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday.
Japan’s minimum wage might not budge much if corporate fears prevail
Unionists hold a rally in Tokyo in April. Households' real cash earnings have been falling year on year for more than two years, with the weakening of the yen making the situation only more difficult as prices of imported goods increase rapidly.
New uniforms to help protect athletes against secret photography
Members of Japan's women's Tokyo 2020 Olympic volleyball team. Along with table tennis and hockey, volleyball is set to be one of the sports at the 2024 Paris Games in which Japan's female players will don new uniforms that help protect them against secret photography while they compete.
After Tokyo Olympic disappointment, Nadeshiko Japan look for redemption
Japan's Hikaru Kitagawa dribbles past a defender during an Olympic qualifying match against North Korea at National Stadium in Tokyo in February.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.

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